U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce said he thinks the government shutdown threat has been overblown.

“I don’t think it will happen, no,” he said. “I think both sides are engaged in somewhat theater.”

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Theater or not, a deadline is looming.

If the Senate and House can’t pass a government funding bill in the next six days, the federal government will shut down.

The part of the budget dealing with The Affordable Care Act is causing the hang-up.

Republicans in Congress, including Pearce, he said, don’t want to fund it because the majority of Americans don’t support it.

“The idea of balancing the budget has nothing do with the defunding of the affordable care act,” he said. “The desire not to fund it is a simple response to the American people saying shut this thing down.”

Pearce said there is productive conversation happening behind closed doors.

“Already, those discussions are going on,” he said. “So the posturing will continue in public but quietly people are saying, ‘OK, this is what I would do, this is what you would do let's see if we can get together.”

However, Pearce said there’s a lot of work ahead.

“The workload is coming up and the long nights are standing ahead of us, but I do not think it will end up in shutdowns,” he said.

Pearce has been in southern New Mexico for several days touring flood damaged areas.

He said most people are more concerned about cleaning up from floods than what’s happening in Washington, D.C. He’ll board a flight Wednesday and head back to the nation’s Capital.